Cellink B Failure

CapCanuck

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I bought a dashcam with a Cellink Battery B about 2.5 years ago. As of today, the Cellink has stopped working. If I turn it off and back on, I get three beeps with different tones (it goes low/medium/high). Neither the charging nor the full indicators come on. There is no power to my dashcam (no pass-through either).

I have used my multimeter to investigate. The Cellink is getting power. There is no power output from the Cellink irrespective of whether the input power is on or off (in other words, no passthrough). I have powered down the Cellink and waited 5 minutes, powered it back on and and held the reset button, with no fix.

Is this think dead? Or is there some additional troubleshooting steps I can go through?

Thanks!
 
Just like in old style laptop batteries made up of 18650 cells, one cell dying can topple the whole system, it is probably something like that you have.
So you probably need to take your multimeter to the batteries inside.
 
There have been enough reports of Cellink failures at around this age to make it a known issue with these devices :( But not all die this soon, and AFAIK nobody has went deep enough into diagnosing the dead units to know what the problem is and/or whether all the dead units fail because of one single problem.

I too believe it is cell failure, or perhaps a component failure in the charging circuitry. Whatever it is, this is not a user-repairable problem unless you have the knowledge and equipment to properly match LiIon cells for usage in a series circuit layout. If you had that you would have already fixed it, so all I can advise is to replace the Cellink.

Please recycle the old unit properly; Lithium based batteries can be very harmful to the environment and dangerous if improperly handled. "Call2recycle.ca" should help you find someplace locally to do that (y)

Phil
 
If he is up in Canada, his unit could see pretty damn cold temperatures in winter, and probably less of a issue also some hot days during the summer.
I am wondering how much power EV cars use in winter to keep t heir batteries warm enough to function properly, and if that in winter is a parasitic load on a EV not plugged in to a charger.

I actually wonder if people living in a cold climate ( at least some times of the year ) will have a shorter battery life on their EV car battery VS say a person living in a place that never see temperatures below freezing.
Granted heat are also a problem, but as a EV battery are on the bottom, and it will get plenty of cooling when moving then i dont expoect that is as much of a issue, at least you should not need active cooling of the battery while parked overnight.
 
Thanks ... probably is fatal.

As for Canada, I live in Vancouver which is pretty mild on temperature extremes so that's not a contributing factor (plus, I park in underground at home and at the office). And am well aware of recycling requirements and there's an RCBC depot about 5 minute drive from my home so not even much of an inconvenience.

If I have to replace, not sure I want to give Cellink the business. Between the Blackvue and the Thinkware iVolt, any thoughts? Camera is a Blackvue, but that shouldn't make a difference.
 
I think these units are much the same, at least in regard to the battery technology inside them.

If you have a faulty cell, i am not quite sure you can just replace that one cell, but buying XX new cells should be cheaper than buying a whole new unit.
I am however unsure if you can get larger batteries and then have the APP handle that newer & larger capacity, so if capacity was not a problem i would stay with the same MAH size batteries.

Of course depending on how the batteries are put together in the unit, and your supply of tools, it might be no problem or borderline impossible for you to do something like that.
 
O forgot to say, with lipo batteries it is much like memory cards, you can buy the best brand / most expensive ones, and still go up in flames ( literally in the case of lipo batteries )
At least that is my take from well over a decade of using lipo batteries in RC hobby, TBH there we had the best luck with fairly cheap batteries VS pretty darn expensive ones we have also tried.

There is also the cases on many a fruit phone or other high end phone going off in peoples pockets,,,,, and the poor vapers too and their smoke devises.
 
All these devices are supposedly made by Egen, so you're essentially going to get the same thing from any of them.

Phil
 
O forgot to say, with lipo batteries it is much like memory cards, you can buy the best brand / most expensive ones, and still go up in flames ( literally in the case of lipo batteries )
At least that is my take from well over a decade of using lipo batteries in RC hobby, TBH there we had the best luck with fairly cheap batteries VS pretty darn expensive ones we have also tried.

There is also the cases on many a fruit phone or other high end phone going off in peoples pockets,,,,, and the poor vapers too and their smoke devises.

HI.

I think you're mixing between li ion batteries (and their tendencies to have thermal runaways) with lifepo4 batteries that are used in these cellink packs.
Lifepo4 has been proven to be much more stable than li-ion batteries. And also have better cold temperature energy retention too.

No mobile phones have used lifepo4 batteries.

As to RC hobbyists... I am not privy to what batteries they use.
 
All these devices are supposedly made by Egen, so you're essentially going to get the same thing from any of them.

Phil
In that case, the Thinkware seems like better value so I might go that way. Thanks ...
 
In that case, the Thinkware seems like better value so I might go that way. Thanks ...
How about using your car battery, and maybe upgrade it to AGM if it is not already?
 
How about using your car battery, and maybe upgrade it to AGM if it is not already?
I have a 2018 Audi, not about to run it from the battery and risk running the battery too low in parking mode. My two options are an automatic shutoff unit (eg. power magic) or a backup battery. The battery is the better solution IMO.
 
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